It’s a Saturday morning and I am on my way to rent a copy of ‘No Direction Home’. The movie made by Martin Scorsese that I want to watch in the same week as Dylan received a Pulitzer, the week that a new Scorsese about The Stones gets released, the week a military junta take de facto control of Zimbabwe although the South African media have taken an age to wake up and most still carry on their personal vendetta against Bob.
My plans are thwarted by an occupational hazard that afflicts the movie renter, the REM blonde at the counter smiles brazenly and states that it has not been returned. My mind struggles to absorb this blow and I turn away and search for a reason to feel happy. Strange how it’s the little things that make a difference.
Eventually settling for ‘Sin City’ and another rerun of those great one liners amidst the landscape of littered, forgotten heroes in their own minds, a supreme escapist remedy.
Racing back home my senses are jolted as peripheral vision takes in a headline poster with rational mind summarily discarding it but it repeats again, 500 m later, only this time far more vehemently. The word “Bullard’ in the headlines seems strange to a mind wired to see Zimbabwe, Bob, Mugabe, quiet diplomacy or any mix of the aforementioned buzz words.
Halt, reverse and re-engage with the posters. Yes, it is true. “Bullard writes for us”. “Why Bullard had to go”.
On a weekend with an extraordinary summit taking place to try and make sense of Mugabe and the playground of his mind, I am standing staring at headlines that promise important content in certain publications about the summary firing than summary hiring of a columnist for racist or satirical writing.
Editorial devoted to justifying the firing and opposing editorial devoted to justifying the hiring. This guy must be important.
My mind returns to a post on the blog about precisely this topic but it all seemed unimportant compared to election results that were simply vaporised, election officials that were transferred offline and a leader called Bob who won’t leave his playground to go and try to convince African leaders of his latest conspiracy theories about US involvement in fixing the elections.
Reaching for the digital to zoom in on this apparent anomaly, I have to grin and glance around at other motorists just driving by and living out their lives.
The South African media, or certain enclaves of it are a curious bunch. Nobody else seems to remember the disastrous event when certain hacks, editors and other accomplices had to stand confronted by their gamble that hadn’t paid off. Backing Mbeki to landslide Polokwane has to stand as a defining moment in SA media and their belief in their own myth.
The headlines I confront are a variation on a similar theme as one paper fires a columnist for being racist, another hires him for satirical purposes before the smoke has even cleared and the opposing groups put forward justification and rebuttal all in an attempt to pander to the fickle whims of the soapie addicted readership.
A bit of smoke and mirrors on the horizon here as I expect to see some PR battalions complete with groupies arriving in a dazzling display of glitz and glam and glowering at any party pooper.
At the least there should be a book deal and movie potential as well as the ubiquitous debate that will rage in all public forums around the effects of columnists on readership and the overwhelming and absolute need for freedom speech, all keeping the spin alive.
These events spark a wry grin and a fleeting wish to be involved with a PR exercise unfolding before disbelieving eyes, I could do with the cash. To be there at the moment of history when headlines are usurped by trivial spats around people that don’t make the news, only embellish it to their own advantage, now that’s wag the dog taken to ridiculous levels.
The end result is a column written in The Saturday Star and not memorable for anything except the distinct feeling that this was jotted down in a flurry with a borrowed pen on a scrap piece of Rand Club table cloth.
One thing does jolt the cynic and add a hologram of meaning to proceedings. The scribe suggests that the world might boycott the football in 2010 in anger at South Africa and it’s dithering with quiet diplomacy over Zimbabwe.
The end result of a defcon 3 PR drill, a display of weapons for intimidatory purposes is confirmation that columnists may come and go but the unverified, unconfirmed and creative, seditious rumour does indeed drive newspaper sales.
In fact, one could go further and state that one persons gossip is another persons gullibility.
For the record The Saturday Star has employed David Bullard and their headline was ,“Bullard writes for us”.
The Weekender was in solidarity with stable mate Sunday Times, who had fired Bullard after 14 years, and their headline was, “Why Bullard had to go”.
